Having been on a boat and caught some decent sized fish on a boat and from the pier in southern California, here are my two favorite offshore set-ups for big game fish. These two set-ups are very versatile and you can use them for jigging, deep dropping, fly lining, or other types of big game lure fishing i.e. (surface irons), and trolling.
Here is my first setup. It is a Penn Beachmaster 155 spooled with 20 yards of 15lb mono backing, 250 yards of 50lb kastking braided line, and about 20 yards of 30 lb monofilament topshot. This setup is great for smaller tuna, yellowtail, rockfish, mackerel, bonito, sea bass, halibut, salmon, and more. I've used this setup for fly lining and deep dropping and it has quite a bit of torque for cracking up heavy weights from deep depths of 200 feet and it is definitely able to handle fish anywhere for the less than 1 pound range up to the 100 pound range easily. The rod on here is a daiwa triforce (which is a little light for the reel) but is what i'm using currently.
My second set-up, my heaviest setup is my PENN Jigmaster 500 on a 7 foot penn slammer heavy rod. The jigmaster is spooled with 20 yards of 50lb monofilament backing and the rest of the spool is filled up to the top with 50lb kastking braid. This set-up is ready for most big game fish and has caught me some nice fish so far.
Both of these reels were purchased at Fisherman's Supplies out of lawndale, california.The best sport/commercial fishing tackle shop in southern california.
